A shopping spree and Finding Happiness!

Guten Tag!

I hope you all are doing just dandy! I know I am doing fantastic. :)

Guess what...I leave in five weeks! That's 35 days...incredible, huh? :) Anyways, things are not too hectic yet even though people are asking me if I get nervous and just in a big hurry to get everything I need done. It's really not that way. 90% of my preparation I had finished by Christmas and now I can just focus on everything to prepare me further spiritually. It's been quite a last few weeks, but busy? They were not.

Some of you might be aware of how small my town is. It's nestled in an area west of Bonn that has the topography of a pancake and it is entirely surrounded by fields and fields of sugar beets. It's always windy. There are no stores, no post office, no bars, no restaurants, no school, no barber shop, ...but there is an intersection with a traffic light that is powered only a few hours a day (it's also the only traffic light). That's the highlight though. Remember that intersection in Cars (Radiator Springs)? Yeah. Pretty much my town.

So anyways, I'm telling you this because I want to show you how inconvenient it is to get to a store where you can buy Mission stuff, especially of the kind that is quality and affordable. The stores here are VERY expensive if they have the right things that will survive two years. What do I do? I help the postal service people keep their jobs and order online! :) I found this to be much cheaper, and the quality of the things I bought was great through the bench. All I bought in Bonn was a new pair of shoes, two sets of slacks, and two long-sleeve white shirts (they were like 80% off, no complaints right here!). All else I ordered online, mostly on amazon. It's got some bad press here in Germany lately but really, I absolutely adore this place! It's what a farm town boy who travels a good four miles (one way) on foot to buy a stick of butter at the closest (tiny) store has always dreamed of. They just have EVERYTHING and generally it's really a lot cheaper than at the store.

First off, I needed to replace my backpack in a way that would meet the new standards. So I purchased a shoulder bag (It was a gift. Just kidding! :) But get it??). It looks so cool! Large enough to place in it all I need to function as an efficient Missionary, with at least six small pockets for a lot of the smaller things (like pass-along cards) that would otherwise get lost in a regular backpack. It's also black and it looks great. The downturn (though a small one) is that it doesn't close all the way and there is no zipper, but just a waterproof cover that goes over the top. It should stay dry though, which is what really matters. And, it cost me less than $20! I was astonished when I saw the price. I've already been using it for my Church stuff right here and it's just super great!

Second, short-sleeve white shirts. Who would have thought that NO store within a 20 mile radius (at least) has short-sleeve shirts? "Because it's winter." Oh yeah, got it. I bet their quality is so inferior that their shirts wouldn't make it all the way to summer then if one buys them in January...After some thought, I also asked my friend amazon for some suggestions, and found some made by Fruit of the Loom. They had them in my size and they were less than $15 each! Also, they feel very comfortable and I've not been sweating as much as with some of my other, more expensive shirts. Yay!! :)

Third, I was finally able to fulfill myself the dream of purchasing a pair of rainboots! Well, one can tell they are more for people who work in agriculture and such, but they still work. :) And they were also super cheap, less than $15 for the pair, and I was honestly a bit sceptical. I still ordered them about two weeks ago, thinking that I'd have plenty of opportunities to find out how good (or bad) they are. Now, it came to pass that the past two weeks were exceedingly dry and warm and sunny. This means no opportunity to adequately test them out. Bummer! Now, I got into this conversation with this friend of mine, Mallori, yesterday and she said she'd send me some rain. Needless to say, it worked! So it rained today, quite a bit actually, so when I got home I was very excited to finally give my rainboots a little test run. They held out all the water from the few puddles (there weren't many) on my walk so I was pleased...though not convinced. I mean, if there's a flood and we're called to clean up (which, likelier than not, is going to happen at some point), there will be more than a few puddles. So, I took the long way back home through a little chunk of forest because there is always mud in a forest! :D Not that I had ever been looking for it intentionally before, but I found a large mudhole a little off the path. After some natural hesitation and once I knew I wouldn't be seen (though I can't quite understand my anxiety of being seen since now, a few hours later, I BLOG about it), I gave it a try and stepped right in. I had the hardest time getting back out but I survived, to everyone's fortune :) It was a blast though! And I got a little more dirty than I expected. One could say that the best rainboots don't help much if you're stuck up to your knees...but I was surprisingly satisfied still. I guess that "test" was like the tests they do with cooking pans in infomercials when they hold them into a furnace for an hour. More trial than I'll ever need! :) But I'll be fine, warm and dry now for (dirty) outdoor service projects, floods and even shoveling snow. :) None of which I really want to do in my regular Mission shoes.

I also bought a Missionary journal yesterday but it's not here yet. So we'll see :)

In other news...I got myself some new glasses! Technically they are my grandma's Christmas present but I get to wear them! I'll post pictures soon. They are hipster glasses though so I finally look cool haha :)

Now, I know people who draw a lot of happiness from shopping. I'm not one of them for sure (although I enjoy getting stuff for cheap -- It's my greedy Swabian heritage). But instead, I've brainstormed lately about things which make me genuinely happy. I was led to doing that because I went street contacting with the Elders and we were giving away this awesomely inspirational DVD called "Finding Happiness". It's essentially a cute video of five minutes worth of inspired questions about where we come from, why we're here on Earth and what our future is going to look like. No answers. Just questions. It gets people thinking and I love what happens when people think and are woken up from their everyday routines. :) Anyhow, while I generally (and sometimes more specifically) have found answers to those questions, I am still looking for constant, genuine happiness. Here are some observations I've made:

• I'm happy when I am worthy in deed and thought of the company of the Holy Ghost. 
• I'm happy when I'm around people who uplift and inspire me. 
• I'm happy when I serve others.
• I'm happy when I learn and understand something new.
• I'm happy when I feel my actions have a visible impact.

I've also taken time to scratch down some of the moments when I felt particularly happy, within the last two years. There have been MANY more good times I've had, but I just brainstormed the first five that came to mind. They were:

• Rocking off to Taylor Swift with some of my best friends after a spontaneous trip to IHOP on National Pancake Day.
• Receiving my high school graduation diploma. 
• Sitting in the Celestial Room after getting my endowment.
• Cooking with the Institute lunch crew every Thursday in service of our poor fellow college students.
• Watching my roommate and friend Adrian get baptized (and now getting ready to be married in the Temple).

There's a pattern. And it's quite astonishing: One cannot go through the Temple without being worthy. The first and most random memory I thought of was not special, not life changing, but just a precious moment with some very amazing people. Lunch and serving others is speaking for itself. I had to learn a lot and work VERY hard to graduate from high school (remember how Germany is NOT America...), but I did great. And giving somebody a Book of Mormon that might kindle the fire of inspiration to change this person's life, his future family and all his posterity for generations and generations is just an amazing thing that more people should do :)

Now that I have recognized this pattern, I (and possibly we all) can now live our lives in a way that will make us more happy. See? Be worthy, choose your friends wisely, serve others, never stop learning and monitor your progress and success. And the good times will roll! :)

MUCH love to all of you! You guys are amazing! Servus :)

Pascal

Die Zeit vergeht im Fluge!

Hey everyone! Happy Monday :)

I mean to lighten everyone's mood (Broncos fans in particular) by starting out with a joke today. So...what kind of dish did I serve myself some dinner in yesterday? Answer: A supper bowl.

Alright, now on to some real things! Yet another two weeks have gone down since I last blogged and time is going by just so insanely quickly! I also really appreciate all your love and support which you show me in person and online, in public and in privacy. It means the world to me! :) I may not be the most popular person there is, but I certainly do have the best friends in the world. Not even a contest! :)

These past two weeks have been covered with a few more interesting Missionary experiences. There's at least one baptism coming up in my ward! This studly man who I wrote about in my last post has a date for March 8! I'm so excited for him and for the decision he's made to follow the Savior's example to be baptized for the remission of sins. He's the Elders' neighbor so they get to teach him often, and he even bore his testimony yesterday. It was great and I can tell how ready he is! :) There was another investigator at Church for the first time and he really loved it as well! He's from Eritrea and I might help teach him next week. The way the Elders set me up with him was actually kind of funny. They were calling me earlier the day they tracted into him just to talk about some things concerning facebook, and literally 15 minutes later they called me again to ask what language they speak in Eritrea and if there's a Book of Mormon translation in any of those languages. That's always a good sign because this kind of question is waaay too random to be asked just for the fun of it. I googled it immediately and found out that people there speak English and some kind of dialect whose name I already forgot. So English it was! I was very pleased to tell our two Elders from Utah that there actually is a Book of Mormon translation into English :) Anyhow, this man also seems really solid and I'm excited to get to know him more! It appears that there's also a lot of other people the Missionaries are working with, both less active and investigators, but I don't really know them yet so I can't say much. I can just say that things are definitely speeding up here! :)

Facebook is also going well! We've been able to add a good number of members, active and not so active, and even some investigators and potentials. I really like meeting with the Missionaries sometime during most weeks (not this one, by the way) because I think it motivates them to find people. Having a list of five I can add each week is pretty good but more than ten makes me super proud in their finding efforts (which has happened almost generally). It's such a cool and non-intruisive way to stay in touch with people and I love it! :)

Anyhow. This should be it for a brief little update. This Gospel of Jesus Christ as we have it in its fullness in this Church is amazing! It is a source of love, peace, forgiveness, happiness and empowerment that I think no one should have to live without :) I love this work!

Yours,
Pascal